


Anabasis

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      Many thanks to invader_jim for her perceptive and thorough beta job.  Anything still amiss is because of me. <br/>Greek translation ( if you care about that): <br/>Aei: forever, eternal <br/>Anabasis: a going up, march, expedition <br/>Anagnorisis: a coming to self-awareness, realization <br/>Aporia: The state of being at a loss <br/>Athanatos: undying, immortal <br/>Aulos: flute <br/>Parthenai: unmarried/virgin women <br/>Thanatos: death <br/><p>Written for KL Morgan</p>
    </blockquote>





	Anabasis

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to invader_jim for her perceptive and thorough beta job. Anything still amiss is because of me.   
>  Greek translation ( if you care about that):   
> Aei: forever, eternal   
> Anabasis: a going up, march, expedition   
> Anagnorisis: a coming to self-awareness, realization   
> Aporia: The state of being at a loss   
> Athanatos: undying, immortal   
> Aulos: flute   
> Parthenai: unmarried/virgin women   
> Thanatos: death   
> 
> 
> Written for KL Morgan

 

 

**_Aporia_ **

The initial acclimation to existence on Mount Olympos was difficult, to say the least. Psyche arrived in a euphoric daze, recently awoken from enchanted sleep and previous nightmares-- as those earlier events now seemed. Dissociated from her previous existence and (as she was soon to discover) her former humanity, the things most real seemed only the numbing chill from the swift passage through the air and the soft brush from Eros' wings against her shoulders. The light was dazzling here, the inhabitants even more so. Psyche could barely differentiate one deity from the other, so overwhelming was the first impression she received.

The next few days-- or was it weeks? Months? Time flowed differently in this place and Psyche wasn't yet accustomed enough to say with any sort of certainty-- passed in a blur of the new and strange and despite her new immortality she thought she might die from the intense onslaught.

Sensations were at once heightened and also curiously distant up here. It was as if, in this coolly magnificent dwelling of the gods, the senses were stripped of their earthy qualities, leaving only the bare essence-- aesthetic and removed, but somehow even more present in their discreteness.

Oddly enough, one of the hardest parts of becoming used to life on Mount Olympus was the food. The nectar burned her throat and ambrosia tasted painfully _vivid_ , exploding with violent brightness on her tongue.

In the home of the deathless everything was too bright and vibrant Although she too was now one of the undying, Psyche still felt herself small and fragile, a shrinkingly mortal creature robed in divine trappings, her newly acquired permanence merely borrowed.

Once the initial painful dazzle had worn off, the gods began to coalesce into individually recognizable forms for Psyche and she observed with a sense of rising wonder the beings from the stories told around fires in crowded rooms at home.

Therein began the attempt to navigate through and establish herself within the tangled skein of the social network of the gods.

Psyche' first and most pressing concern was her relationship with Aphrodite. What would her reluctant and downright-antagonistic mother-in-law do upon learning of this new state of affairs? She dreaded the moment when the she first neared her during that awful first social interaction.

Psyche felt shrunken and drab in the presence of the resplendent goddess. Aphrodite was overwhelming in appearance and gestures-- larger than life even among the tall Olympians, her hair and eyes impossibly shining and bright. She laughed often with a cascading clarity and the smell of flowers announced her steps before she entered the room. She mostly ignored her daughter-in-law, seeming to prefer to pretend that the whole incident with the worshiping and the arrows and all the rest of that sordid affair really hadn't happened and even if it did, well, that was _ages_ again wasn't it and really there was no point making a scene and there was Ares over there and hadn't she better go keep him company.

Psyche was overcome by profound relief that this social hurdle was survived-and she could now turn her attention to surveying the rest of the pantheon. Although much of her initial encounter with the Olympians was blurred, a few impressions did stand out more distinctly in her mind.

Ares was tall, gorgeous, and petulant-- his mouth curved often in haughty discontent. Psyche said little to him and he to her.

She liked Hermes at once, although she found the capriciousness of his quick smile rather disconcerting. He seemed the most approachable and earthy of the lot and his mannerisms were less alien to her. Psyche supposed that when you spent as much time as Hermes did, doing Zeus' bidding-- or, as he called it, running Zeus' dirty errands-- you were bound to exist easily in more than your own accustomed situation.

Apollo was seemingly the very essence of every beautiful youth that had ever existed. His long flowing hair was encircled with laurel, his limbs straight and long. He rarely smiled and when he did it was icy. Psyche wasn't certain, but it seemed that his expression grew colder, whenever it lit upon Eros. There was certainly a story in there somewhere and she made a note to ask her husband in private later.

His sister Artemis was present when Psyche first set foot on Olympos, which was unusual for her. She looked fey and careless in appearance--sandaled, white-tunic-ed and well-muscled, out of place among the other lavishly groomed Olympians. Her eyes were cool and amused and she played idly with her fingers on her bow, which rested nearby. When Psyche next looked for Artemis in the place where she had sat, she was gone, slipped out with a huntress' stealth.

Hestia, Psyche saw little of and what she did was mostly her back as she bent to prod the hearth with a stick. She was mostly ignored by the rest, although they did tend to orient their positions in space around her when all were gathered in a room. Unconsciously or nor, Psyche couldn't tell.

Athena should have frightened Psyche the most. Mostly a tacit presence in the hall, she was formidable and self-contained. But Psyche was oddly reassured by the tempered calm that the goddess exuded.

Hermes was her favorite to pass time- or what passed for time here-- with. His eyes crinkled when he smiled and his body language was the most human-like she had seem from the gods so far. Dust occasionally clung to him in a most undivine way after his, although never for long.

Hera was incomparably lovely herself, albeit in a stern manner. She gave little acknowledgement to Psyche beyond a regal nod and a bare "Welcome to the realm of the gods." She was to all outward appearances the perfect counterpart to Zeus, who was craggy and paternal looking, with fierce blue eyes and tall even among the other gods.

Psyche' words failed her when Zeus first turned eyes upon her. Her tongue felt thick and useless in her suddenly dry mouth, but the king of the gods and the cosmos did not seem to expect words from her, breaking into a lecherous grin and clapping Eros resoundingly on the shoulder. "Well done, m'boy! You do know how to pick your mortal women. Now if I weren't married myself..." But the look he gave her husband was knowing and said more than his words.

And Zeus' eyes strayed when Ganymede walked past bearing the golden cups brimming with sweet nectar. Then again, few eyes didn't. Zeus may be indiscriminate in the numbers of humans he took to his bed, but there was nothing undiscriminating in his tastes. It seemed that no object of Zeus' sexual advances lacked some form of uncommon beauty.

Psyche would have gladly taken him herself had she not been constrained by the remnants of her human mores and also sheer exhaustion from night after night of excruciating intensity.

And as it turned out, Ganymede was something of a common commodity around here. Psyche was shocked the first time she turned a corner and found Hermes and him entangled behind a pillar. She stammered something and fled, but neither of the two seemed to see anything out of the ordinary and exhibited no change in behavior when she next crossed paths with them.

She was overcome at times by a sense of near pious fervor for her situation. Here she was in the fabled hall of the divine Olympians themselves. This was an honor near unheard of for a mortal-- a sacred and eternal existence! Wasn't this the pinnacle of all that was pure and beautiful in the cosmos?  
Psyche saw her never-to-be-cut lifeline stretching into perpetuity and reeled mentally at the perfection of it all. Nothing would ever be ugly or petty ever again, she thought and ignored the tiny voice in her head that seemed to be saying something to the contrary.

Psyche existed blissfully with this idealistic impression until the next-- Psyche's first at her new home-- symposium on Olympos.

_**Anagnorisis** _

As any child of Hellas, Psyche had listened to the takes of the Olympians in all their sordid and purple glory and accepted without much thought or concern the deeds sung by bard. Incest, murder, rape, impure and improper behavior-- these were simply thing the gods did. They were the _gods_ after all, how could it be profane?

Once having crossed to the other side of the veil, Psyche found herself in a conundrum. Did she adapt the ways of her new home-- _home_ , she hesitated to form the word even in the privacy of her head-- or did she adhere to human custom? Was godhead an absolute or a relative? She was no longer human, but neither was she a goddess, or was she? Was it a process? Perhaps the stories were wrong...or exaggerated at least.

She asked Eros about that one evening after stillness had taken hold of the maze of marble halls and they lay recumbent in their chamber. He laughed at her at first, but when she pressed further and he heard the determination and disquiet staining her voice, he gave her an answer of a sort.

"The customs of humans are different-- necessary for them, but not for the gods. And you are now one of them, one of us." He refused to speak further on the matter and soon silenced her continued queries with means pleasant yet implacable.

She certainly didn't feel so, at least not in the presence of the other Olympians and the innumerable related deities who circulated through with little discernable pattern to their comings and goings.  
Psyche had little sense of a routine on Mount Olympos. Gods came and went sometime, but mostly stayed, with the exceptions of Irene and Hermes, spending their time in frozen/halted opulence. Nectar flowed and ambrosia were consumed often, but erratically, without a pattern formed from necessity of nourishment. Perhaps to be a god, Psyche thought dazedly, is to do from desire, and not from need.

A marriage to Eros--Psyche was beginning to discover--was a marriage to consuming want and burning need. Their nights were spent in a room set a-shimmer with kindled lights echoing their blazes onto the gleaming walls. Their deeds in there had often the feel of an invocation, of some rite larger than the individuality of this action here now.

Psyche couldn't shake the feeling that there were thousands of eyes looking out of hers and when she gasped, it was not only her voice that she heard.   
Because to share a bed with the god of desire itself is both sublime and torturous, bittersweet, or perhaps better, sweet _bitter_. For that is often the more accurate order of affairs in the bed of Eros. Psyche was no longer a naive girl, overwhelmed by the state of affairs that she had fallen into.

The symposium began, unsurprisingly, with libations, much as any human celebration might have begun. However, as they were the gods and needed to give no honors to themselves. Therefore the libations went straight from the gilded cups down theirs throats. This state of affairs continued for quite a while.

By the end of the night, Psyche stumbled, flushed with intoxication and embarrassment, back to the chamber she shared with her husband. Without him, because he was otherwise occupied, in ways and with whom that Psyche reddened further to think on. It had all started with Dionysos' whirling dance and exhortation to all join in. Not all had, but there were enough participants to render the hall a chaos of loosened limbs and laughter. This was the tamest part of the evening.

As things had progressed and debauchery in every sense of the word Psyche had heard of (and some she hadn't) had reigned supreme, she had found herself seated on a couch in an increasingly area of solitude as the revelers continued in their revelry, gradually splitting off in twos and threes. She saw everywhere bared limbs gleaming by impossibly bright candlelight, continually raised and drained cups. The piercing sound of the aulos began to grate on her ears and she pressed her hands over them without thought to appearances. Not that anyone was looking at her now.

Hermes had conversed with Psyche earlier, but he was now laughing merrily with Dionysos as the latter related some jovial story in a thong of eager listeners. Hestia was among them, her normally pale and ultra composed face ruddy warm and relaxed. Psyche had never seen her so unconstrained. The fire was leaping high and hot in the hearth. Aphrodite was ensconced nearby in Ares' lap while the latter played with the loosened strap of her garment, murmuring 'Cytherea, Cytherea".

Hephaestos had glumly left some hour before and there was no longer any thin pretense of propriety.

A satyr danced with abandon on the fur rug spread in the center of the room, eyes closed and goaty fingers playing upon his pipe.

Even Hera was relaxed and a small smile broke onto her stern and lovely face as she watched Persephone, here on her yearly respite from Hades, sit at her mother's feet. Demeter was idly and lovingly stroking her daughter's hair, intent on little else.

Scanning the crowd for Eros, Psyche eventually found him. He was reclining on the far end of the room. There near him was also Ganymede and their body language was unmistakable.

Psyche rose suddenly, overcome with the urge to get away, to anywhere other than here. She left the crowd and fled into the dark, cool, and winding corridors that riddled the mountain.

Here was where Psyche lost her all her illusions and the dreamily rosy quality of her new life was changed to a harsher, new reality.

She drifted through the days to come with perplexity and resignation. The symposia continued as per usual and she learned how to be an invisible part of them. Little shocked her anymore.

Psyche found a certain muted pleasure in watching the antics of the gods. She smiled when it was expected and spoke what was expected of her.   
Roaming the hall on of those lengthy evenings spent in revelry her gaze lit upon Eros across the hall by Eris' couch. Not often present in Mt Olympos proper, the goddess of strife, with her spiky demeanor was laughing knowingly at something spoken privately into her ear by Eros. His curly head was bent over her shoulder and he wore a sly smile.

Psyche was struck at that moment by their sudden resemblance, not so much of physical form, but more of some intangible quality that crackled the air around them. Not a connection amorous in nature, insomuch as Eros was able to relate to another entity without that element being present (he was the god of love after all), but more familial or sibling-like-- perhaps like coins stamped differently but formed from the same metal. For a split second they blurred before her eyes and she could not discern one from the other.

Psyche blinked dizzily and the fleeting impression was gone. She looked at Eris and her husband, now both clearly defined and distinct and wondered how she could ever had confused the two. The nectar must be mixed too strongly tonight. Dionysos had taken it upon himself to play symposiarch in a more literal way than usual. Often he simply drank what was there, but this evening he had poured and orchestrated cups and mixing bowls with a carelessly enthusiastic glee. He was two gods down from her now, ruddy and aglow, his brow stained with trickling grape juice. Any moment now he was going to brain Hephaestus with his thyrsus which he was brandishing with an ecstatic abandon.

Apollo was reclining in the vicinity and observing with bland amusement, sipping slowly from his own cup. He looked extremely out of place.

Psyche averted her eyes and drained the dregs, ignoring the burning slide down her throat. It was less each time she did it.

This holding pattern of aimless days and symposiac nights lasted for a time until one evening she found herself fleeing once again the heated and busy banquet and wandering the winding halls. Psyche was lost in solitude, when she turned a corner and encountered someone completely unexpected.   
The massive figure unfolded from the stone ledge and towered over her in the dim lighting. Psyche blinked. "Zeus?!"

"Psyche, isn't it? What brings you here? There is revelry back there yet..."

Reticence be damned, Psyche seized the opportunity and knelt as a suppliant would, grasping Zeus' knees with both hands. " Zeus, father, why is there such a gulf between me and the rest. I am immortal now after all..." She dared not voice any of her other turmoil-- what did the sky father care for her (still!) human troubles?

Zeus regarded her with eyes distant under his craggy brows and for once there was no trace of his habitual leer as he regarded her. "You stink of thanatos still, child who was until recently human. The deathless ones do not often find the sweet and decaying scent of mortals at their hearth. It will take time for you to be fully rid of the miasma." His gaze was not without pity but Psyche still recoiled inwardly at the alien stare.

She formed an incoherent response of sorts and left again, glancing back once at Zeus' bearded profile outlined in the starlight shafting into the alcove.

Psyche trailed her way through the dim corridors, avoiding the occasional reveler whose path she ran across.

She thought she had successfully avoided everyone when she turned another corner and encountered Athena, much in the same manner as Zeus.

The goddess glanced up at her with a look both inquiring and unsurprised. "What are you doing here, away from the rest, Psyche?"

Psyche did not answer her question, but blurted out instead with a desperate honesty that surprised even her, "How is it that I am here?! And how am I to live now, with the rules removed and me no longer human, but still not one of the gods?!

Athena was impassively silent for long enough that Psyche had concluded that no answer was forthcoming and was about to excuse herself with as much dignity as she could muster, when Athena turned her head and met her gaze again. The goddess's were flinty gray and distant, but not unkind. " You will find that existence here will never be completely comfortable, but as you lose the vestiges of humanity, you will cease to care."

There was perpetuity in the slope of Athena's shoulders and stern serenity in her profile. Psyche had no response, but fortunately Athena seemed to expect none.

She came eventually to an overlook with a view of dizzying splendor. From the heights of Mount Olympos, the air was so clear and pristine that the moon and stars blazed with doubled force, throwing the black of the night into sharper contrast. If it were day, Psyche knew she would be able to see the earth laid out in a rocky patchwork of mountains and pastures. As of now however, the expanse outside resembled a void of inky blackness, punctuated by the occasional celestial light.

 _If you jumped_ , Psyche thought, _It would be hard to believe that you would eventually encounter ground, until you did of course. And then, to be immortal would perhaps not be something you desired._

She stared until her eyes unfocused and the pinpoint brightness of the stars pooled out onto the black. She knew before she turned to re-enter the core of Olympos that Eros would be behind her. There was hesitation in his face, but when she assented he enveloped her in his wings as he had the first day. He said simply, "This is what we are."

_**Athanatos aei?** _

Psyche decided to take matter into her own hands. If she was to live in this place for countless eons, she was determined to do it in a full and autonomous way. She began by finding Ganymede. He knew what she intended the moment she approached and wordlessly stroked his beardless cheek. He smiled boyishly and matter-of-factly at her afterwards and they went their separate ways with saying much of anything. She said nothing to Eros, but she knew that he knew because he brought Ganymede back with him one evening soon afterwards.

And then it wasn't always Ganymede. Despite herself, Psyche was surprised by some of the characters in the string of nighttime visitors. Others not at all. But, as she mused to herself one morning at she tripped over a carelessly placed bow, much of the stories she had heard of the chaste parthanai goddesses were greatly exaggerated.

The askance looks were less frequent now and when Psyche encountered them now, she found she cared less.

And when Eros slipped through the door at odd hours sometimes alone sometimes not, she merely turned over and let him into the bed without resentment or question. And sometime she slept and sometime she didn't-- Psyche drew the line at satyrs and also at Eris, although for different reasons. Because this was apparently life as a god-- at least as one married to Eros. And what they did, never mind the why, was divine and sanctioned simply because they did it. And for now that was enough.

 

 

 


End file.
